Cabin Along the River Road

EXCERPT:

Deshi sat comfortably in the soft leather seats of the limousine as the driver pulled slowly away from his house. Deshi pulled out his sketch pad, cracked open a bottle of kombucha and settled in for the thirty-minute drive to the Austin airport. Engrossed in his latest drawing, Deshi did not see the black SUV that pulled alongside the limousine at the top of the on-ramp. Feeling the jolt from a sideswipe, Deshi looked up as the driver exclaimed, “What the hell is his problem?”

            Shoving his sketchbook back into his computer bag, Deshi looked up just in time to see the gun emerge from the SUV’s front, passenger window. “Get down! Gun!” Deshi yelled before ducking, clutching his bag to his chest, his mind reeling with confusion. He heard the gunshot and saw the blood hit the limousine’s partition dividing driver from passenger. The limousine careened wildly for a few seconds before the SUV made full body contact with its side and pushed the sleek car off the freeway onto the shoulder.

            In one fluid movement, Deshi snapped off his seatbelt, glanced at the slumped, silent driver, and hooked his tech bag around his neck. Kicking open the door, Deshi looked quickly over his shoulder at the two men in the SUV as they nudged their vehicle in front of the damaged limousine. Deshi didn’t look back as he bolted from the backseat and dashed along the roadway, over the guardrail and into the dense foliage and trees dotting the on-ramp hillside. Half-sliding, half-stumbling, and desperately grasping the strap on his computer bag, Deshi stayed low to the ground and wove a path through the trees toward the maze of residential streets spread out in front of him. He heard the crack of what he thought was gunfire, but remained focused on a route that would get him safely away from whoever these men were.

His thoughts ricocheted with the bullets nicking the trees around him. These guys can’t be from Constant. They want me to work for them. Who would want to hurt me? I got to get hold of my Dad!

Coming out of the brush, Deshi pushed through a break in the chain link fence before cutting through the subdivision, heading back to his house. Hopping backyard fences and sneaking through side yard gates, Deshi soon found himself across the street from his home, peaking through the fence boards to surveil the street. Just as he was about to open the gate and run for the front door, a black SUV pulled up two houses down the street. Two men sat in the vehicle appearing to wait.

Deshi, still breathing hard, speed-dialed his father. As his father’s mobile rang, Deshi’s thoughts were already formulating his next move and the various options associated with it. His plan and choices appeared in his mind like a programmer’s schematic. As his call went to voice mail, Deshi already knew his next three moves.

In a hoarse whisper, Deshi’s voicemail came in breathless spurts of sound bytes. “Dad, somebody’s. . . kill me. They shot. . . driver.” Deshi paused to suck in a deep breath of air. “Don’t go home. The guys with guns are there. They’ve lost me for now, but I need to get somewhere safe. I’m gonna hop on an easy ride. I’ll leave a number for you in the storage shed out back. You know the place. Please, Dad, don’t go home. Find some place to go where they won’t find you.”

Smashing his mobile with his heel, Deshi used the phone to dig a small hole behind an overgrown shrub next to the fence. Dropping the cracked mobile into the depression and covering it with dirt, Deshi checked one more time on the men stationed near his house. Turning toward the back fence, Deshi dashed around the corner of the house and hoisted himself over. His escape route was clear. He would pick up his motorcycle from their storage unit a few blocks away and drive out of Texas to the cabin along the River Road and his friend Cassie.